Kim-Joy's cat-themed doughnuts recipe

Details

• Cuisine: British
• Recipe Type: Baking
• Difficulty: Hard
• Preparation Time: 60 mins
• Cooking Time: 10 mins
• Serves: 12

Step-by-step

1. If working by hand, add the flour, sugar, salt, yeast and grated orange zest (if using) to a large bowl and stir for a few seconds to distribute the ingredients evenly.
2. In a separate bowl, whisk the water, milk and eggs together. Add the liquid ingredients to the dry and use a spoon to combine until you achieve a rough dough. Tip out the dough onto your work surface and knead for 10-15 minutes until smooth and elastic. The dough will be sticky to start with, but avoid adding too much flour – it will gradually become less sticky as you knead it. If the dough sticks to the surface, use a dough scraper to scrape it off. Keep kneading until the dough is smooth; it will still be a little tacky but that's normal.
3. Add the butter 40g (3 tbsp) at a time and knead in. The dough may stick to the work surface but it is important to avoid adding any extra flour.
4. If you have a bread machine or stand mixer fitted with the dough attachment, simply add all the dry ingredients, mix, then add all the wet ingredients, except the butter. Let the machine knead the dough until smooth and elastic, about 7 minutes, then add the butter and let the machine knead this in for a further 5 minutes.
5. Place the dough in a lightly oiled large bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Leave to rise until doubled in size, around 2 to 3 hours at room temperature. If it’s a cold day, you can speed up the rise by placing the covered dough in the oven preheated to no more than 30°C (86°F).
6. When the dough has risen, knock it back and roll out on a lightly floured surface until about 2 cm (0.75 in) thick. The dough will keep trying to shrink back every time you roll it out, so allow it to relax and shrink back a little. You can even walk away and come back to it after 10 minutes, to make it easier to roll to the desired thickness.
7. Stamp out around 12 to 14 circles (I use an 8 cm/3.25 in cutter) and carefully transfer each of these to an individual square of baking paper. Once transferred, you can cut out the centres (I use a 3 cm (1.25 in) cutter). Removing the centres after transferring to baking paper helps to make sure that each ring doughnut is even in size and shape.
8. Gather up the scraps and roll the dough again to stamp out as many doughnuts as possible. Loosely cover the doughnuts with lightly oiled plastic wrap and leave to prove for 1 to 2 hours (depending on room temperature) until doubled in size.
9. Heat enough oil for deep frying in a large, deep pan to 180-185°C (350-365°F), and try to maintain this temperature while frying the doughnuts. Fry around 3 doughnuts at a time, carefully lowering them into the oil along with the baking paper underneath (this helps them to keep their shape and prevents deflation during transfer). Use tongs or a similar utensil to remove the baking paper from the oil as quickly as possible. Fry the doughnuts for 45 seconds on each side. They should be deeply golden with a distinctive white ring around the sides (this is a good indicator that your doughnuts were proved for the right amount of time!)
10. When the doughnuts have been fried on both sides, remove them from the oil with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels. Leave to cool before decorating.
11. To decorate, insert 2 of the almonds into the tops of each doughnut. Melt the white chocolate in the microwave using short 10-15 second bursts and stirring after each.
12. Dip each doughnut face down into the white chocolate until coated, then place chocolate-side up on a baking sheet. Place sprinkles on the doughnuts now, if you like. Chill in the fridge for around 20 minutes to harden.
13. Once hardened, you can add the details. You can either use royal icing, dyed black, or melt chocolate in 15-30 second bursts in the microwave, then transfer to a piping bag, cut a small tip and use to pipe the details. If the chocolate is too runny, chill in the fridge for a minute. If it’s too solid, microwave it for 5 seconds at a time. Add a sprinkle for the noses and sprinkles for the eyes or pipe them on.

For the vegan dough:

1. First, make the tangzhong paste. (Tangzhong is a cooked flour paste that's usually used to improve the texture of bread.) Using a balloon whisk, mix the water and flour together in a pan until smooth. Switch to a spatula and continue to stir until over a medium heat until thickened to a pudding-like consistency. Pour into a bowl, cover with plastic wrap (making sure it touches the surface of the tangzhong) and chill in the freezer for 10 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, add the oil, aquafaba, soy milk, caster sugar and salt to a large bowl, or stand mixer if you have one. Add the chilled tangzhong to the bowl and whisk together (the oil will separate – this is normal and expected), then add the flour and yeast.
3. Then follow the main recipe steps to knead the dough (skip the step where you add the butter), and continue as normal.

Recipe adapted from Bake Me a Cat by Kim-Joy (Quadrille, £16.99) Photography: Ellis Parrinder.